Sick for Christmas

Well. I am WAAAAAAY behind on blogging and reading blogs and that's just no good! Unfortunately, I caught that awful Christmas Eve flu bug that was going around and spent the last four days in misery. Christmas did not happen at my house this year, and it ended up being okay because my mother-in-law was sick, too. She didn't ended up coming over like she was supposed to and will be coming instead for New Year's. And with as sick as I was on Christmas, that was just fine with me! Found out on Friday that two of my coworkers had the same flu on Christmas Eve, and heard from a few patients who had it too. Not a pretty flu bug people. If you get it, don't eat a lot and keep it to bananas, rice, and tea. Do not attempt anything else! Oh, and lots of sleep. I'm finally feeling and eating normal after four long days. I'm thinking that if I had played it easier it might have been gone in three.

Anyway, I am way behind on reading blogs, so I must get to them and catching up with life now that I'm on the mend! I will post more later once I have some scrumptious soups and other feel good meals to share!

Christmas Cookies: These are a few of my favorite things

Thought I should share with you the VERY unhealthy cookies I made this year. Usually, I make anywhere from 5-10 different types of cookies, but I limited it to my favorites this year.

1) M&M cookies: this year I made two batches because the first batch did not turn out soft and moist like my cookies are supposed to be. I think I got it figured out and I actually ended up making the second batch with dark chocolate M&Ms. You know, to make them healthier.... antioxidants... and stuff....

2) Candy cane cookies: These are the cookies I'm allergic to but are my all-time favorite Christmas cookie from childhood. The are a dryer cookie topped with crushed candy cane and sugar. Scrumptious and aromatic.

3) Chocolate and peppermint meringues: this is actually my own recipe that I created about two years ago. I was making coconut meringues from a recipe I had and thought it would be fun to crush up the leftover chocolate chip and candy canes I had and throw them in to a meringue mix. Genius! It's a bit tricky to get the chocolate chips and candy canes just right so they are melty and gooey inside the meringue, but I'm not sharing my secret. This is my new favorite Christmas cookie. You can't beat a mint and chocolate combo. Well, expect maybe peanut butter chocolate.... oh! Now I might have to experiment!

Cookie overdose!

I discovered a funny thing today. There really is a limit to how many cookies I can eat, and eating too many really does make me sick.

After Sunday night's cookie making fun, I decided to go crazy and make a few more batches. Well, after eating too many yesterday (and learning the ins and outs of baking in my new house) and developing a throbbing headache, and eating too many for breakfast today and feeling sick from it I learned my body does not like that many cookies! Plus, once I did "detox" and eat real whole foods I felt a true sense of calm and relaxation come over body, like it was giving me a hug for not feeding it more crap. This time last year, I would have just kept eating cookies and ignored the strange icky feelings they gave me, but this year I actually started craving real food! Goes to show that the body really does know what's good for it!

Also, I am pretty sure I am allergic to even imitation almond extract. The cookies with that in it gave me a huge headache yesterday and today made me eyeballs feel like they were bugging out of my head. Too bad those happen to be my favorite cookie. I guess I will have to leave that flavoring out next time and substitute for something else. I'm sure I will find something as good if not better to make them just as tasty.

Scratch that... a Christmas with A batch of cookies

My old co-worker Stephanie (who got me my fabulous fridge) came over for dinner tonight and there was much revelry and good eats to be had. I had a blast and can't wait to have her over again for another fun filled evening. After we were done with dinner we decided we needed to make a batch of Christmas cookies for fun and to at least say we made a batch of cookies this Christmas. As mentioned in my previous post there was much more tasty dining to be had beforehand, so here is tonight's dose of food cravings. Feel free to drool a little, I won't tell. :)

For dinner, I made roasted chicken that I slathered with butter, EVOO, salt and pepper, herbs de Provence, and some lemon. I cooked it my convection (microwave) oven and it was quite possibly the juiciest peace of poultry I have ever had. I could have eaten the whole bird in one sitting! For side dishes I made my EVOO and herb roasted potatoes and my mango, cucumber, and red pepper (a new addition to the recipe) salad with balsamic vinaigrette. The dinner was healthy and ridiculously flavor-filled. I could be content eating it ever night of the week.

We followed dinner with port wine poached pears, scented with cinnamon and star anise. Stephanie and I decided to kick things up a notch and add in some orange juice, which was a very smart addition. The orange notes would sing through the reduction every so often and surprise you. It tasted and smelled a bit like Christmas. The smell wafting through the house as they boiled was intoxicating.

The reduction on top of the poached pears was thick and syrupy. Look at the deep dark red color from the wine!

The sauce was so good, Stephanie and I couldn't help but lick our plates! I thought I would be funny and snap a pic of us doing just that! Stephanie isn't normally a plate licker, but I am when the dish is good enough and I don't care if you think it's gross... you know there are times you want to lick your plate too!

After dessert, we made a batch of candy cane Christmas cookies and had a blast doing it. Unfortunately, I ran out of red die so we made blue candy canes instead!

What we didn't know was that the blue food coloring would stain our hands!

It was totally worth it though! I ate a cookie and it tasted so good, but my lips and tongue are telling me to wait another day to eat more... the eggs aren't fully cooked/set yet in the cookies! That's the problem with raw egg sensitivities, it means you have to wait a day before eating your freshly baked cookies!

A Christmas Without Cookies

Between moving and working and life in general-- well, mostly the moving and unpacking- I've come to realize that I don't have time to make a single batch of cookies this year before Christmas. I'm a bit bummed about this, but at the same time I'm sure my stomach and gallbladder are very thankful for it as I have a bit of an addiction to cookies and will eat them until I get sick. In fact, most years I make way too many and then eat them for two out of three meals a day. Perhaps I will get to make some on Christmas day itself, but it's highly unlikely... and at that what is the point so late in the season?

Since I don't have any cookies to show you (little tear) and I have not dedicated adequate blog time to food porn as of late, I thought I would spend some time updating you on what I did eat during the moving these past few weeks. Food allergies and gallbladder dysfunction aside, I ate well and even created a few quick and multiple purpose (leftovers are awesome) dishes to get through the week.

During the week prior to moving I developed a deep love and craving for portabello mushrooms and potatoes. Both are great cameleons and soak up the flavor of whatever you put in or on them, which makes for a wonderful flavor explosion in your mouth. I reused some mashed potatoes I had made a few days prior and topped them with sauteed portabello mushrooms that were simply seasoned with EVOO, salt and pepper, and a garlic pepper spice blend I have from the Spice House. That was one of the best lunches ever, everything tasted so buttery even though there was only a small amount of butter in the potatoes!

Trying to make lots of food that I could reuse during the week and getting rid of excess food product in the house roasted some yukon gold potatoes with fresh thyme, EVOO, and salt and pepper. Having enjoyed thoroughly the flavor combo from earlier in the week I made a fresh batch of sauteed portabellos to go with it. So good!

Once we had a working fridge and were completely moved in to the house, I was excited to make our first meal in the house. Time constraints considered, but still wanting something flavorful, I opted to make one of my famous stir-frys. A no fail flavor combo, I stir-fried up some broccoli, orange pepper, mushrooms, and chicken with fresh grated ginger and garlic, freshly squeezed lime, soy sauce, and a dousing of honey. You know, some people say the holy trinity in cooking is carrots, celery, and onion, but I saw it should honey, lime, and garlic. I served everything over jasmine brown rice. I was hoping to have leftovers for lunch but my husband ate it all.

Ok, that should hold you over for now. I am off to prepare a gourmet feast for my girlfriend who sold me my fabulous new fridge. On the menu: Herb roasted chicken, herb roasted potatoes, a fancy salad, and port poached pears for dessert. I need to get cooking!

And the random rashes begin again

It's been months now that I have been rash free on my ankles and feet, but it looks like that has come to an end. Agh! Itchy itchy itchy!

Look at all those hives on my ankles... they completely surround them! I'm starting to wonder if the rashes have to do with the amount of refined sugar I am consuming. I've had quite a bit of "not good" for me food (pop/soda, donuts, eating out) this past week due to moving and not having a fridge so it's making me wonder if there is a correlation.

Either way, I will do some acupuncture tomorrow and slather my ankles with hydrocortisone in the meantime. Funny thing is, they weren't even itchy until was I taking my socks off and noticed them, it's like they were brewing under my socks all day and then, bam, surprise! Itch me!

Let them eat steak!

First, a quick update on the fridge. The new fridge came on Tuesday (yet again, my friends came through for me and made miracles happen) and it is AWESOME!!!!! You can't even tell it's a scratch n' dent fridge that also survived a truck going off the side of the road! Look at how lovely it is:

It's ginormous!

Look at all the storage space, including two humidity controlled crisper drawers, a temperature control meat/cheese/deli tray, and bonus third drawer for whatever! And did I mention the shelves are spill proof and slide-out?!?!?

And look at all the storage in the pull-out freezer! I can easily fit a turkey in the bottom and upper tray makes for great organization!

You're jealous, I know. :p

Enough about my fancy new fridge that I got for under cost (I will be cooking a gourmet dinner for my girlfriend who sold it to me in thanks this Sunday). Let's talk about steak. It's been well over 5 months since I last ate a piece of steak, and my only exposure to red meat since that time has been the occasional lamb in my lamb stuffed vegetables. After all that time, I risked it and had a small amount of steak last night at my work's holiday party. We were at a country club and allowed to order off the menu, but unfortunately there were not many things on the menu that were bubble-girl friendly.

Side note: speaking of bubble-girl my coworker yesterday was joking that I should live in a bubble... it actually makes me smile when people say that because it is so true given my ridiculous amount of allergies and now that I have a blog and lifestyle dedicated to talking about and actually breaking those bubbles it makes me motivated to do it more!

Everything available to eat last night was laden with non-bubble friendly foods. The safest looking item on the menu, that also would require the least effort on the chef's effort to accommodate said food allergies (which is how I make these things work as opposed to calling ahead of time and talking with the chef like I should... I'm lazy in that respect) was the 5oz fillet with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. I spoke with a waitress to let her know of my food allergies (or at least the ones that were likely to be present in the meal I was ordering, it's easier than listing all 20 million of them), and she was so understanding and accommodating I couldn't believe it! When I thanked her for being so wonderful, she told me that she had food allergies when she was a child and grew out of them so she understood what it's like eating with food allergies. Takes one to know one, right?

My dinner was wonderful and my gallbladder (thankfully) did not complain at all. Granted I only ate half of the 5oz fillet because I was so satisfied from the baked potato (I substituted from the garlic mash to save on some unneeded fat and heavy cream) and asparagus and starter salad- which had a very tasty raspberry poppy seed dressing- that I didn't feel like eating more than that of the steak. Plus, the steak was way overcooked and dried out. I can't say the chef was good chef, but at least he went above and beyond in accommodating my needs so I can't talk too much smack about him. I even split a triple berry lemon cake for dessert with my husband, and still no complaints from the GB! Success! Granted, I did feel like my stomach was churning a little bit in it's attempt to digest the food, but it was probably mostly a result of my stressing about whether or not I would have GB attack. These things are frequently psychosomatic, I've discovered.

I still have a ton of pics and other stories to share from the move in to the new house, but right now I am off to get a move on my day and finish some unpacking. It's my day off and I've got things to do!

Moving... on

This last weekend was a big milestone as my husband and I bought and moved in to our first home. All things considered, it went really well. Nonetheless we did run into a big roadbump in our gameplan when we tried to turn the fridge on and it wouldn't cool. Not fun. We quickly scrambled and found a replacement for a great price- many many thanks to my wonderful friends and old co-workers at American TV & Appliances for getting me a steal of a deal on an amazing fridge (scratch and dent, but not so much that you notice which is awesome).

I dealt with the broken fridge ordeal like a champ Saturday morning when it was confirmed that the fridge was indeed not working. Acting quickly I got a hold of my friend and she found me the perfect fridge that could be delivered Monday. Awesome! Granted, I didn't foresee the delivery truck going off the side of the road on it's way to the house today due to the ice we got last night, but thankfully they will be delivering it tomorrow.


It wasn't until Sunday night when we talked to our realtor that I stopped handling things like a pro. His reaction led us to believe that perhaps the seller would need to replace the fridge for us. Come to find out our contract was worded as such that we are SOL on the broken fridge, but still my realtor even hinting at it start my brain going in all sorts of directions. In a matter of hours I was overwhelmed with information and possibilities and regret and anger. As a first time home buyer I have no clue about such things and, yet again, it seemed that everyone had an opinion. For the past 24 or so hours I have heard nothing but everyone's opinion about how we should or shouldn't proceed. Frankly, I just want to take a nap, put my hands over my eyes and ears and pretend it never happened. Hear no evil, see no evil. I'm having a real hard time moving on from all of the stress of the broken fridge fiasco and I'm finding it even more difficult to focus on the positive- I'm going to have a kick butt fridge and I got it for under cost!


So, let's take a moment to focus on the positive. Here is my new fridge in all of it's glory (okay, just a web pic, but still):




It's an LG French door 25770 series fridge in smooth white. Pretty awesome right?

See, just blogging about it made some of the stress of the day go away... And as my voice teacher reminded me (he's my surrogate therapist when the regular one is not available), the good news and the bad news is that I'm going to be okay. He also reassured me that my feelings and reactions to all the was happening were perfectly normal and that if the fridge breaking down was all that went wrong in the move we were doing great. I guess he has a point.

Now to wait and see that my fridge is still in the same condition it was when I picked it out after surviving the delivery truck going in the ditch. Fingers crossed it is all okay and I can start enjoying my new fridge tomorrow. I'm sick of eating out and I miss my fresh fruits and vegetables!

Acupuncture saves the day!

I'll admit it. I'm a bit stressed. What with all the closing on our first home in two days and trying to make sure everything is done beforehand and all the paperwork is submitted that needs to be, stress has become my middle name again. Like many people, I go in to a very much fight or flight state when I am dealing with such major stress. Accordingly, my body responds with digestive issues, mood swings, crying, and general disorientation and forgetfulness while I am panicking away. Knowing this was all about to happen/happening I had Doc K pin me up for stress relief last week and it worked wonders. Today, it was definitely time again to have the acupuncture work it's wonders and get my mind and body to relax to a more normal level of chi flow.

Sad but true, I had a complete melt down when I couldn't find my glasses this morning. I had come home from working out and running errands, played on facebook a bit, and then taken a shower. Somehow, during the time my glasses came off my face and ended up getting legs and walking. I literally spent 20 minutes searching the whole apartment to find them. Meltdown city. Normal people would be able to think soundly and do a thorough retrace of their steps to find said glasses, but not I. Instead, I frantically searched the same three spots over and over hoping to find them even though they weren't there the first five times I looked! It turns out they had fallen on the floor in between the couch and coffee table, and I'm still not sure how they got there but they were found. Not surprisingly, this complete loss of mind happened right after I was stressing out over whether we had all of the final paperwork submitted for closing on the house. I'm sure the timing was not a coincidence...

So, I was very demanding of Doc K today and told him exactly how I wanted my acupuncture to go: stress points including my ears, sinus points to do a pre-emptive strike on the cat hair clean-up we will be doing after close (the seller owned cats, I'm super allergic), and the special point on the foot that gets your bowel movements to "stick together" better since I'm still recovering from all of the margarine in that frosting and cake I ate this weekend. It definitely did the trick. Within an hour after my acupuncture session my head and body felt so much better! The stress seemed to melt away and my energy levels boosted, plus my nose started to drain and my stomach stopped being so mean to me. Acupuncture saves the day!

Now, I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the effects last through the next week!

Let them eat cake... or not, in my case

Saturday night, in my effort to branch out with more foods that I haven't eaten in a while, I decided to make a cake. I also, made a tasty dinner to go with it, but we will get to that in a minute. Cherrybrook Kitchen makes a boxed cake and frosting mix that is free of egg, dairy, and nuts- SCORE! This concept is wonderful for the nut-allergic community especially since if you look at any packaged good nowadays it says that it may contain trace amounts of nuts. Being part of the nut allergic community, and also still limiting my dairy intake while still avoiding eggs when possible I decided to give it a go. Things went quite well at the beginning.





The batter was very scrumptious. Melted margarine and rice milk were used as the moistening/combining agent for the dry ingredients and it made for some darn good batter. Have an allergy to raw egg since about 4 or more years ago, I have missed eating raw batter! It was so good. The baked cake itself turned out quite good as well, moist and rich from all of the margarine. Albeit, it was a bit thick and heavy for my usual preference in cakes, for not having eggs in it I can't complain!


For as good as the cake was, the frosting didn't quite live up to the same standard. The concept sounded good, but the final product was anything but. The box mix called for two and a half sticks of margarine to be mixed with the scant amount of dry ingredients they gave you. After tasting it on the cake I wished I had added my own confectioner's sugar to soak up some of the oiliness of it. Even after putting the frosting in the fridge to solidify the result was no better. The frosting had a nice chocolate flavor but it is ultimately overwhelmed by the massive amounts of hydrogenated oils in the margarine. My husband and I both thought we were eating a stick of margarine. Look at the frosting, you can see the sheen from the oil!



To make matters worse, my stomach had a very difficult time digesting all of that margarine. Remember, there was a lot of margarine in the cake too! The more cake I have eaten the past few days the more it feels like there is oily sludge just sitting in my stomach, and today that sludge wanted out. Yeah... it didn't end pretty, but at least now I am feeling better! I'm sure by tomorrow my belly will finish cleaning itself out of all the margarine gunk and be ready for lots of and lots of salads... which is all I want to eat now after that much margarine!


On a positive note though, I made a nice dinner Saturday night too, which I repeated tonight since I still had some leftovers. I saw Rachel Ray make something very similar on her show 30 Minute Meals and I decided to make my own rendition of it. Roasted broccoli with lots of garlic and EVOO (my husband and my favorite thing), mashed potatoes made with chicken stock in lieu of milk, and Italian sausage turkey meatballs with tomato sauce. I think next time I will make homemade turkey meatballs instead of the stuff I got out of the casings (which is filled with all sorts of fake stuff that's not good for you) and not used a jarred tomato sauce- even though Newman's own marinara is one of my favorite marinaras out there. Seriously though, I could eat a meal of nothing but the roasted broccoli.

More Food Fun

Thanks to the new supplements I'm taking I've been able to successfully branch out with all sorts of foods I haven't eaten in a while. Always erring on the side of caution I try to reintegrate these foods in moderation... as tempting as it is to binge on them! But I would rather be safe than sorry because nausea, indigestion, and gallbladder attacks are no fun!

I'm slowly working on eating dairy products again, so the other night I made one of my all-time favorite easy to make pastas with Parmesan cheese one top. It's a simple radiatore noodle with Newman's Own Pasta Sauce dish sprinkled with cheese. I served it with broiled swordfish (which, thanks to my crappy oven almost started a fire... I will not miss that broiler when we move, or the oven itself). Wanna hear something funny, though? The cheese didn't really taste as good to me as I thought it would. I could have left it off and enjoyed the dish just as much, if not more. Isn't interesting how our tastes change, especially after eliminating certain foods for a period of time?


Now that I have determined that whole grains and gluten are very important for my digestive process (gluten-free wasn't the way to go for me) I found a super tasty fiber-filled oat cereal, Mother's Cinnamon Oat Crunch, that is my new favorite breakfast. Served with rice milk and topped with berries- I prefer raspberries with the cereal, but only had strawberries at the time I took the pic- it is a filling and super healthy breakfast.


In my quest to stimulate my liver I have started to drink small amounts of coffee again. Hey, if the GB lady thinks I need to do a coffee enema to stimulate my liver, than why not give it some stimulation through a daily dose of "joe" in preparation? Ok, so my logic and reasoning may be flawed, but I do love any excuse to have coffee. Usually, I will drink a small cup of black coffee but I have been allowing myself to have the occasional Starbucks while I am integrating dairy back in to my diet. My new favorite? Tall/Grande half-caf non-fat vanilla cappuccino, though I still have a soft spot for my old favorite, the Grande half-caf non-fat hazelnut latte.



I'm also trying to eat more protein, though I still limit the kinds of protein I get. Searching for quick meal options I have started to enjoy my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again. Since peanuts don't bother me- just the tree nuts, especially almonds- this is a great source of protein fuel for me on the go while I am still limiting dairy. I especially like my PB&J sandwiches for lunch on Wednesdays after personal training. My new favorite thing to do with PB&J? Toast the bread it is going on and eat it open face. Something about warm bread making the PB all melty makes it tastes so much better.



For Thanksgiving I made the Spinach Salad with Cranberries that I forgot to take a picture of and finally I remembered to take one! I've altered the salad to my liking by removing the pumpkin seeds (they were too hard to digest for me still healing digestive system) and adding in cucumber. The combination of cucumber and cranberry is a match made in heaven. The taste is completely refreshing, especially with the homemade cranberry dressing.


Ok, I think that is enough food "porn" for now. I will post later about the dinner I made last night, complete with cake!

Stress is an understatement

House buying is ridiculously stressful. You cruise along for awhile and it goes along fine, then you get to two weeks before close and WHAM! It all starts hitting at once. Negotiations with the seller, whinyness from the seller, friends telling you to back out of the deal, family members telling you to fix everything you found wrong in the inspection yourself (crazy!), etc, etc. It's non-stop! And as of 10am this morning I was having a nervous breakdown from it all!

Here is the really cool thing though. Knowing I was getting uber-stressed I had Doc K pin me up (acupuncture) so that I would de-stress yesterday. I had him do this not even knowing that I would be hit with a huge wad of stress last night. Some issues with the seller caused me to get insanely stressed out, and normally that would result in hours on end of obsessing and being on edge and consequently not sleeping from that nervous negative energy. Not the case this time. I slept like a baby last night and felt rested this morning. Not only that, when the stress level climbed higher this morning from concerned friends all wanting to put their two cents in (some good advice, some a bit extreme) and I went in to full blown meltdown I recovered really quickly. I literally was able to let go of the "gunk" and move on with the rest of my day. Did a few things to pamper myself (drank a cappuccino from Starbucks, which was amazing), ate some healthy food, and mentally moved on. Seriously folks, for anyone that knows me you know that I usually am completely incapable of doing that. I think the acupuncture really unblocked my chi that affects my mental state. Doc put needles in my ears and I really think- scratch that- know that it worked. Acupuncture is amazing!

Interestingly enough, we watched a great speaker who talked about getting rid of the gunk and getting out of our "mental" state of being during training at work today. It was a wonderful motivational speech and touched me and my situation in a lot of ways. Still digesting the full meaning of it, but already realizing how much of that work I have already started to do this past year or so. Getting rid of the gunk and living in the now feels so amazing! It truly allows me to vibrate/resonate at a high frequency state of being rather than a blocked up low frequency state of being. Would you rather resonate in the world living your dream, than be a dull vibration ignoring your dreams?

Let it snow

The first snowfall of the year always has the ability to warm my heart and relax me. For many people, snow equals stress and bad driving and general misery. Not for me. The beauty of the white flakes falling from the sky and coating the bare branches is a symphony of visual detail and reminds me of the beauty of nature. Just staring at the contrast of the snow against the dark branches puts my mind at ease. I love bundling up in layers or with a blanket and doing a whole lot of nothing, short of maybe drinking a warm cup of tea.

Luckily, while the snow is coming down today I had to take some time to practice my singing for my voice lesson next week and I just happen to be learning some Christmas music right now. Totally put me in the spirit. I could sing it all day long.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas can be such a horribly stressful time for people, and in many respects it is. Insane amounts of shopping, jam packed schedules, and money flying out the door left and right to "celebrate" the season. I often wonder why more people don't take just a minute on a day like today to just stop, listen, and stare at the beauty outside. Just taking those few seconds for mental health can do wonders for your spirit and make everything not seem so bad. The stress literally melts away. With the economic crisis we are facing this holiday season, many families are feeling as though they won't be able to celebrate the holidays "right" because they can't give as much as they want to. Why can't we celebrate the season in simpler ways? Who needs oodles of gifts and food anyway? It makes us greedy and gluttonous. And for me, I know that having that sort of lifestyle growing up taught me that love was found in things and food... neither of which are good for your emotional (or physical) well-being.

In celebration of the first day of snow and the start of the holiday season, I would like to list the "simple" things that help me to celebrate the holidays and truly enjoy the spirit of the season.

Jessica's "Favorite Things" to Celebrate the Season

1. Snow. Lots of it, pure white and frosting the tree branches like a slice of cake.


2. Christmas CDs. In particular: A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, George Winston's December, A Very Special Christmas, and my Bradley University Chorale Christmas (circa 2001, with all of my friends from college singing some of the best holiday music ever).


3. Lights on houses.


4. Sharing meals with friends and families.


5. Blankets and warm fuzzy sweaters.


6. Hot tea or a warm cup of coffee on a cold day.


7. Christmas movies. Whether is be one from the theatres or on the TV (Lifetime original) I'm a sucker.


8. Singing Christmas songs with friends, at church, or wherever.


9. Sharing recipes for cookies or side dishes or anything in general. Finding new ways to make the holiday special through food is always fun! You can reinvent your holiday every year, or just dream of reinventing it and using those ideas from other recipes to alter your traditional recipes.
   
10. Decorating or looking at Christmas trees.

What are your favorite things?

A "healthier" Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Today, I am giving thanks for my health and for all of the people who have helped me achieve the much improved state of health I am in today. Thank you!

As we know, my health is still very much in flux and I am continuing to take every precaution to eat healthy, even on such a glutinous holiday. My husband and I spend the holidays at my his family's farm. As is typical with the farm lifestyle, foods are rich yet simple. No fancy stuff at that Thanksgiving, and everything is made with whole milk and butter. Totally not exaggerating. The gravy has whole milk in it (though I still can't figure out why), the mashed potatoes have whole milk and butter, and the stuffing is actually cooked with the turkey drippings so it is full of fat. Not exactly a health conscious meal. Being proactive, I asked if I could bring a healthy "GB diet approved" side dish with the pie I bring every year. Thankfully, they said no problem. And thankfully, I did that because there was so little "safe" food this year! Armed with my arsenal of GB supplements I tried most everything.

Side dishes this year included sour cream mashed potatoes that were quite possibly the richest, thickest mashed potato I've ever had. One bit of my teaspoon size serving was all I ventured to eat. One side dish down. Another side dish was a sweet potato casserole with a pecan strudel. Nope, can't eat nuts. Two side dishes down. And the third side dish, which I did eat a small amount of, was corn casserole. I should have nixed that one to because I don't digest corn well, but I was desperate. One plus to day was a guacamole appetizer! GB safe and healthy food! And better yet, is that everything digested well and my GB did not complain even when I ate bites of the unhealthy whole milk laden foods. In fact, I didn't take digestive supplements after my second meal of the day and did okay! There was a bit of sluggishness in my digestion and I was very aware of my liver and gallbladder for a short time (they kind of ached a little), but in less than an hour after eating I felt completely normal. Making improvement, and I like that!

To help myself out with an easy to digest, healthy side, I made a recipe from Good Housekeeping magazine for a Spinach Salad with a creamy cranberry dressing. The salad had cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds in it and was quite good. In lieu of pumpkin seeds, I got resourceful and used butternut squash seeds since that's what I had in the house fresh from the squash itself. I also discovered that store bought pumpkin seeds are manufactured with tree nuts, so I decided I would rather be safe than sorry and make my own. Toasted butternut squash seeds are surprisingly good! No picture of the salad, but I do have a picture of the toasted seeds.



The cranberry dressing was homemade and had actual real cranberries in it. The dressing featured a small amount of sage in it as well, and was quite thick and creamy. I will definitely make it again, but it needs something to up the flavor a bit and I haven't decided what that is yet.

One of everyone's favorite things I make is a cranberry pear pie (that I found on the Internet, I won't lie). I wanted to make it healthier this year by making the pie crust with more nutritional ingredients. The filling is chock full of fruit so I didn't do a whole lot of tweaking there today, though I might try to adjust the type of sugar I use next time or use less of it. The filling today turned out exceptionally well and I think it had to do something with the addition of orange juice I poured on the pears (four kinds) to keep them from browning and the extra lavender vanilla sugar I put in the sauce. Here is a yummy picture of the pears before going in to the cranberry mixture.



Side note: I can't wait to have a proper kitchen with natural light coming in to it. Everything looks so yellow, and I swear it's not!

As mentioned earlier, I wanted to make the crust healthier. To achieve this I decided to use a whole wheat flour and followed the recipe the flour had for a butter based crust. Usually, I make my crust with shortening because it makes the crust so light and flaky. I thought perhaps we would get the same effect with butter. Not quite, but I can't say it tasted bad either. The crust was definitely rich and buttery, and not at all the light and flaky crust I am use to. But, again, I can't say it tasted bad. And you know what? Because of the whole wheat flour it had fiber in it so I get bonus points for that, right!?

On this day of thanks, I leave you with a picture of the finished pie in all of it's glory. Cranberry pear pie with a whole wheat lattice crust, sprinkled with Lavender Vanilla Sugar.

Enjoying the simple pleasures allergy free?

I've been thinking a lot about nuts lately. Nuts and nut allergies. I am probably one of the lucky few people who has a nut allergy that is not life threatening (yet). Sure my esophagus swells and my tongue gets really tingly, but I have plenty of time to take Benedryl and wait for the discomfort to end. On the flipside, my little brother has just enough time to take his epi-pen before his throat completely swells shut. He has a severe allergy to peanuts, and I am allergic to tree nuts. In some respects I'm lucky because peanuts are not quite as often cross-contaminated with tree nuts, whereas tree nuts are next to impossible to find without trace amounts of peanut on them. Not sure why that is, but perhaps I'm wrong and misreading the labels because my allergy is not life threatening (yet).

Then there are the even more severe cases. My friend's daughter can't even touch someone who's even thought about touching/eating a nut of any kind in the last 24 hours. Immediate anaphylaxis. Recently, my friend, who just discovered her daughter's nut allergy this summer, asked her family to go "nut" free for Thanksgiving so they could join the party. I was completely surprised and shocked to hear that her family was unwilling to do so and stated that food allergies were, basically, a hoax. Now my poor friend must spend the holidays alone for the sake of her daughter's health and well-being because family refuses to acknowledge said nut allergy is being real. It got me thinking...

My little brother grew up around nuts all the time. My mother refused to give up her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Refused to remove nuts from the home entirely. Sure, she made sure he didn't eat anything with peanut butter and separate utensils/bowls were used when nuts were present. Well, at least the peanuts. My mother was convinced that it was okay for my little bro to eat tree nuts and he would be just fine. Being ever the cautious allergy suffer, my brother wouldn't touch anything near those nuts at the holidays and sometimes would flat out refuse to eat if there was a potential of cross contamination. Smart kid, now that I look back. After listening to the horrifying tale of my friend, it hit me how tough the holidays had to be for my little brother. No cookies eaten straight off of a plate- he always had to get the still segregated cookies for the tins- no grazing on hors d'eovres at his leisure, no carefree enjoyment of the holidays. And all because we were unwilling to give things up for his sake. For our own enjoyment, at the cost of his. The selfishness of it is truly bewildering. And it wasn't until my friend told me she was willing to forgo the holidays with family for the sake of her daughter's safety and enjoyment that it began to hit me what we had done to my brother all those years.

Simple pleasures for us, were anything but for him.

On a less serious angle to that, I, now a nut allergy suffer, have become a "special case" at work for massages. We have just revamped our massage services to be more spa oriented, and with that came new massage oils. Oils made with almond oil. Creams made with shea nut. Granted, I don't believe shea nut is as common of a nut allergy, but nonetheless... it's in there. What really gets me is that almond oil is now used for every massage. In order for me to get a massage at work (I do get a fabulous discount) I have to make the massage therapists use a cream, which doesn't work well for certain types of massages, or bring in my own allergy and nut free oil. In a lot of ways, I have to scratch my head that they would have decided to use an oil made primarily of a nut of any kind, but it seems to be a popular choice for massage therapists. So, for me, I have lost the simple pleasure of being able to get a massage. How can you relax when you are wondering if the massage therapist is annoyed with you for not being able to use their normal oil, and how can you relax when you are wondering if they have washed the almond oil off of themselves enough that you won't inadvertently have an allergic reaction? I might have to actually go somewhere else to get massages, which makes no sense at all!

How quickly the simple pleasures in life become not anything but when you are an food allergy suffer.

Breaking Out of the Comfort Zone

What a long weekend. After working Saturday morning, my husband and I bolted off to Chicago to see Lulu at the Lyric and then spent Sunday running around town before heading back home last night. Despite being completely exhausted from all the travel, I'm a bit exhausted mentally and emotionally as well. I made a well-planned effort to break out of my comfort zone while we were up there on Sunday and the pay off was quite good for me. I feel more in control and less panicky about all of the "what ifs" that prevented me from taking that leap before. It's nice to have a sense of calm, even if there is still a bit of chaos out there in my life. "Warm fuzzies" are abounding for me right now on the inside, and it makes me happy.

On another note, I think I have figured out how I am making Thanksgiving healthier and more gallbladder friendly this year. I already called the in-laws to get the okay to bring some side dishes that are safe for my gallbladder and they were very understanding. Hopefully they like my health food too, and hopefully the alterations I am making to my famous cranberry-pear pie turn out to be scrumptious!

The joy of eating tasty old and new favorites.

I realize it's been a while since I have shared some good meal photos on my humble blog. As my diet has expanded back to a more "normal" variety of foods, with less restrictions, my meals haven't been quite a notable as I rotate the same GB friendly meals over and over with a few of my old favorites in between. However, I notice that because I am able to eat some of my old favorites with no consequence again I am getting a bit lazy with my eating. For example, we have had Olive Garden a few too many times the last few weeks since I discovered that I can eat my (carrot free) salad with my own dressing and the cappellini pomodoro. Chocolate has also become my friend again, since it does not cause nausea anymore and digests fine (though I noticed it does make the mucous in my nose get thick... probably from the milk, which I am learning I have a potential intolerance for). The darker the chocolate the better I do, probably because there is less milk. But I digress.

The long and short of it is that I started getting lazy with my eating. Still mostly healthy, but not quite as healthy as I was during the early months of my GB fixing journey. So, keeping the food interesting, easy to prepare, and flavorful is a challenge at times. The creative juices for meal planning have stopped flowing at times so I resort for the easy outs, which is probably not helping my system continue to clean itself out of the toxin overload it is carrying. In order to stay focused, I need to keep finding new foods to share with you, so here are a few of my favorites from the last few weeks.

This dish was my "ode" to being able to eat broccoli again. Stir-fry with chicken, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, peppers, green onions and broccoli. I used toasted seasame oil, lime, and honey to flavor the chicken and used it as a sauce during cooking. Soy sauce was also abundant, of course. I love how the broccoli sucks up all the sauce so you get a great flavor explosion when eating it.

I discovered a new favorite salad last week. Spring mix with cucumber, mushrooms, red peppers, diced marinated artichokes and flax seed oil and lemon dressing. On the side I serve toasted whole wheat flax seed bread with olive oil and salt and pepper. Quite possibly the best salad ever. I served this to my husband tonight for dinner and he commented on how great the salad dressing was. Who would have thought a simple flax seed oil and lemon dressing would taste so amazing? Shelf stable junk dressing be gone! Homemade is so much better! Oh, and I could seriously eat that bread with EVOO at every meal. It's that good. And believe it or not, it's Schnucks brand bread! I "heart" Schnucks store brands. Not that I'm biased or anything from my previous work/research on store brands, cuz I'm not (though really, I am... Schnucks is one of the best out there).

Now, this dish deserves it's own blog. It is by far the best butternut squash risotto known to man. I have requests from my friends all the time to make this dish, it is so wonderful, especially when it's cold outside and squash is in season. It's a butternut squash risotto with fresh sage, and dried red chilis. A wonderful combination of savory, sweet, and spicy. I've been making this dish for about two years now, and it calls for a ton of butter and Parmesan cheese. Given the state of my GB, I decided the only way I would be able to enjoy it this year was to try to make some changes. I substituted some of the butter for EVOO at the beginning, and used less at the end, plus I omitted the cheese altogether. Drum roll please..... it tasted just as good, if not better, because I could truly enjoy it without overloading my tummy with lots of fat. I did not miss the extra butter or cheese at all.

Last, but not least, was my recreation of another of my husband and my fall favorites. This is a dish I kind of created one day, and it came out wonderful. Italian sausage with kale, diced tomatoes and rigatoni. Previously, I would coat the whole thing with Parmesan cheese, but of course, I omitted that this time. I also made a substitution of the Italian sausage for turkey Italian flavored sausage, and the result was awesome. To up the flavor quotient, I included fresh rosemary and thyme and it made the dish come together spectacularly. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. :)

Now I just need to figure out how to get through Thanksgiving this year. My husband's family is not known for a low-fat turkey dinner. My husband frequently drinks a glass of whole milk with his meal (blech!). I'm bringing my famous cranberry pear pie (trying to come up with a healthier version, especially a shortening free crust), but I think I might need to bring a salad for myself as well...

Learning to listen.

It is official, I feel awful from all of the stress of the last week. I am so worn out mentally, emotionally, physically from all the goings on last week that I had to stop and really listen to my body last night though I wanted to ignore it badly! Between the stress of buying our first house, working a ton of extra hours at work, three early mornings in a row (when I'm used to late mornings), and day trip to and from Chicago during all that I plum wore myself out. Stress. Stress. And more stress. There is only so much this bubble girl can take before it shows up in a physical manifestations. So, with much regret I had to cancel on attending my girlfriend's graduate recital last night so that I could listen to what my body was telling me and stop for a while. Luckily, she is an awesome friend and was very understanding and is going to let me watch the video of it later.

After a very long day at work (for a Saturday) yesterday I came home and tried to take a nap in the hopes that I wouldn't feel so exhausted afterwards and could make the drive to see my friends recital. No such luck. With all of early mornings and stress I had decided to drink some coffee that morning and the caffeine was still in my bloodstream apparently. I couldn't sleep at all (though I did drool a little for the whole 3 minutes I did sleep before waking back up). Talk about exhaustion. My eyes were heavy and my body was moving in slow motion, plus my throat felt quite raw and a bit swollen. Clearly, my body was sending me a message. STOP!

If you had talked to me a few years ago, and I felt that way, I would have ignored and kept going. However, I would end up sick for weeks on end afterwards with a cold or just general over exhaustion symptoms. Although I still find it difficult to listen all of the time, I do my best to make my health a priority and listen to the subtle signals my body sends me. Interestingly, the more I listen, the less subtle I realize the signals are! If I had listened to my body better years ago when I first started getting heartburn, who knows if I would have ended up with gallstones! I could have prevented and minimized just by listening harder to how my body reacted to different foods and meal sizes. Sure, I listened a little, but not enough until it was already too late.

Unfortunately, our society is so focused on being superhuman we look down on anyone who can't push themselves to the limit 24-7, even when sick. Too many companies/bosses don't believe their employees when they need to take a sick day, and so many times that sick day isn't asked for until the illness has already progressed so far that it will take twice as long to recover. Not so long ago, I met a man who's company required him to give three days notice if he was going to take a day off when he is sick. What?!?! I don't know about you, but I don't have the ability to predict three days in advance that I will develop the flu or a sinus infection or that I'll break a bone. Anyway, the point is that we operate in a society where you aren't "allowed" to be sick. If you are like me, and have a weaker immune system, you constantly feel like no one believes you when you are in fact sick enough that you have no option but to stay home (even though for the previous 3-5 days you went to work despite not feeling well and subsequently infected all of your coworkers).

So I am working to change that unhealthy mantra, slowly but surely. I am allowing myself to take a day (or two) off to let my body rest and heal. Someday, my nervous system will be operating efficiently and I won't get sick as much, but I have many many more chiropractic adjustments to go until my spine in free of subluxations and healthy! Until then, I'm taking the day off and listening to my body.

A quick dose of food "porn"

I haven't put up any pictures of my food "porn" lately, so here is a quick, but belated, dose for you. Homemade chicken fajitas with lots of red and yellow peppers, covered with avocado, cilantro, and salsa. Yummy. It made for an extra special meal following my first personal training session last week. I don't eat a ton of meat anymore, but I wanted to make sure I had some amino acids and protein for my muscles and the chicken helped out the cause. And it made my husband happy because he didn't have to cook his own chicken on the side like he does with the rest of my vegetarian dishes!

If Only Starbucks Were As Enlightened...

My taste buds rejoiced greatly today. I was able to enjoy a latte, worry free, for the first time in months! No nausea, no upset stomach, no nothin'. Just plain old enjoyment. Why, you ask? Because Whole Foods' Allegro Espresso Bar has rice milk lattes!!!! And boy oh boy was it good! It was perfectly sweet and creamy in just the right amount like I used to drink with skim milk. Unfortunately, though, I don't have an Allegro Cafe or Whole Foods where I live and therefore can only enjoy said drink when I make the hike to Chicagoland every few weeks. Sigh. So, that's why I say "If only Starbucks were as enlightened in to the awesomeness of rice milk" for those of us who can't have cow's milk. A girl can dream, right?

Other news on the GB front though... one of the new supplements recommended by the GB Attack lady is doing wonders for my digestion. The supplement is called Digest Ease and it has really helped to get rid of all the "issues" I was having with my digestion. She said that I have a low-functioning gallbladder due to stress and this product helps to relax me and therefore allow my digestion to kick back in at a normal functioning level. Our bodies go in to what is known as a "fight or flight" state when we are stressed and this rushes blood and energy away from the stomach so our brains and muscles to can react quicker to the stress. Hence, our digestion is compromised. Now, she identified this symptom in me in a quick 30 minute conversation, which means she's pretty darn good because she hit the nail on the head. I've been super stressed, for, what? 29 years? Okay, maybe a few less than that, but my stress levels are pretty high. I've been taking the supplement since Monday/Tuesday and I feel great. Perhaps a bit too relaxed because I've noticed that all the stress is trying to release itself- I've been wanting to cry at the littlest things these past few days! I read a story about some sick kid, I want to cry, I watch a (only slightly) sappy movie or TV show, I want to cry, etc, etc. I'm welling up over the littlest things, it's so silly! But, hey, if it means I could enjoy that cup of rice milk latte this morning and not have any nausea, heartburn, or spike in blood pressure from the caffeine- and all without taking my digestive supplements- I will deal with the sensitivity as long as it lasts!

Lots of goings on!

Big news for the bubble girl, my husband and I bought a house this weekend! Ah! Scary! We are first time home buyers so we are a bit nervous about it but very excited. Fingers crossed I did all of my math right and we will be just fine financially in the house... it's a surprising jump in cost from renting to owning! At least now our money will not be thrown away every month and we can build some equity with our investment. This has been a goal of ours since getting married four years ago (almost to the day, definitely to the weekend), and we worked hard and long to get our credit scores up and our finances in order cuz it was not pretty at all back then! So, as we get closer to our closing date and then move in to the house I will keep you posted on how I attempt to stay sane in the process. Because finding peace and serenity among chaos is definitely one of my mental health goals!

Speaking of health, my gallbladder had a little temper tantrum last night. I ate a few Kit Kat bars, so what, right? Not so much. Well, that and I had a salad dressing with dinner at a friends house that had "onion juice" as one of the ingredients... and I think we all remember how well onions go over with my GB. Anyway, I noticed a slight discomfort when I went to bed last night, ignored it and woke up at 4am wishing I had gotten my tired butt out of bed at midnight to take my supplements so I could have slept the whole night through and avoided the whole waking up in the middle of the night thing. By 5am I had things quieted down and was able to fall back asleep a little later for a much more restful sleep. One thing you would be surprised (or not) about, is that falling asleep while your GB is flaring up does not make for restful sleep in the bit even if you do sleep the whole night through. It's a strange thing I noticed. I ended up sleeping until 10:30am but felt nice and rested, so it worked out. My stomach was definitely cleaning itself out today after last night's attack, but I'm used to it.

The odd thing about this GB attack was that even after the referred pain behind my right shoulder blade went away, I was having pain under a rib near my spine. It felt as though the rib was out of place and it was difficult to lie on. Usually, lying on my right side feels best during a GB attack/spasm, but not last night, and I am still even feeling it occasionally now. I will have to talk to my chiropractor about that on Monday, perhaps there is a rib that shifted out of place that triggered that pain. According to my x-rays in September there was a rib near that area out of place, but I was pretty sure we adjusted it back. Either way, it reminds me about how a healthy spine is so important to how your body functions, because I know my back got out of whack again this weekend and I wouldn't be surprised if the nerves to my GB were being pinched and contributing to the issue.

After all of my GB recovery today I am feeling more motivated to do the flush and see what kind of results I get from that. The phone consultation with the GB Attack lady was good. She feels that my body is very much in a "fight or flight" state (ding ding ding ding!) from stress and that it has caused my GB to be low functioning. She will be sending me a new supplement to take to help relax me and return my vitals to a more normal state of ease. I can't wait to try that one and see how it changes things. She was also very concerned about my unusual food allergies that have come on in the last few years and recommended I do a Coffee Enema. She especially recommends I do it the morning of my flush.

Now, you all know me, and know that I am all about the natural health. Right? Right. A coffee enema (or enema of any sort) is where I start to get a bit uncomfortable with the natural health. Call me a bit of a prude, or just a plain old scaredy-cat, but I am a bit freaked out at the nothing of doing an enema. Funny story though... Four years ago, I was at a training session for a job I had a taken and met a girl who recommended I do one. We were at lunch and I, of course, had to ask the meal provider to make special provisions for my salad so it had not carrots in it. She immediately started asking me about my allergy and how long I had it, and I shared. Come to find out, she had developed a severe allergy to sugar a few years back and it got so bad that her whole body would become covered in hives if she ate anything with sugar in it. Trying lots of different things to stop the reactions, she ended up taking the advice of a whole health practitioner and did an enema and the reactions stopped as a result. I dismissed her suggestion because the idea of doing an enema wasn't exciting to me back then either. But isn't it funny how things have come full circle now? The GB Attack lady believes the enema will help to cleanse and detoxify my liver, which is the root of where those strange allergies are coming from in her experience.

Hm. I don't know. I still need a few days/weeks to digest this information. However, I so desperately want to be able to eat an apple in the fall and stop my GB from hurting all the time that the notion of doing both an enema and flush in one sitting is becoming tempting. I've been researching it and there doesn't seem to be a ton of harm in doing it, and the GB Attack lady is beyond confident that my stones are more than soft enough and that the flush will be even more effective for me with the enema before hand. Relief is near, it's just going to take a bit more inner strength than I imagined...

Personal Training Kicked My A**

Yesterday I had my first day of personal training and loved it. I've never had such a focused workout. My heart rate was up but not insanely high during the whole thing (which is a very good thing since I am still working on getting rid of my hypertension) and we were able to work every major muscle group in a thirty minute session. I've signed up for once a week until the end of the year and I couldn't be more excited.

The only side effect to having been a couple lazy bum the last, um, four years, is that I have like no muscle. So, for most of the day yesterday I felt like my legs were going to collapse beneath me periodically, and now today I can hardly walk my quads are so sore! Yikes! All in all though, I think it's a good thing and worth the temporary pain/discomfort until my body gets reconditioned. This is really important to my overall wellness and should help me in a lot of other areas of my life, particularly my singing. You wouldn't believe the amount of athleticism involved in some arias (well, any aria for that matter) and I know that getting fit and building muscle and core strength is going to help me in my singing.

I had my phone consultation with the gallbladder lady on Tuesday and will fill you in on that a little bit later. Right now, I am going to attempt to move my sore legs so they can stretch out a bit. I might hobble like an old man today, but I'm sure I'll feel a bit better tomorrow!

Tasty Dinner for Election Night

First, I must do my patriotic duty to tell everyone to vote!!! Being apathetic is pathetic, vote! I personally got up early to vote at 6am. Got there about 10 after and waited for 40 minutes. Not to bad, I guess, but still longer than I expected. I'm sure if they had more than 8 voting booths it would have made the line move quicker. All I know is that I have never waited that long to vote, ever. Even in the last presidential election I didn't wait more than 5 minutes, which I accredit to the wonderful election board and their systems (and sheer number of voting booths) at my hometown polling place. Anyway, vote! Wait in line, everyone is doing it!

Just wanted to share some quick pix of my dinner for tonight that is uber-healthy and super easy to make. Tuna and kalmata olive salad stuffed peppers. I made this recipe by combining elements I like from a few different tuna stuffed pepper recipes, and oila! A super tasty meal. I think I improved the recipe a bit this time by adding more moisture, so hopeful it is just as good or better than the last time! And did I mention how healthy it is? All good fats from the olive oil and fish (GB friendly!) and loaded with flavor. The green pepper is awesome with the mixture.

Just before being topped with bread crumbs and going in the oven. I could have eaten it like this it looked so good. But alas, I knew the tuna needed a bit more cooking, so I wasn't gonna risk it.

And right out of the oven. Oh, I can't wait! It might have to be my lunch instead of dinner!

Now go vote! And enjoy watch the poll returns all night tonight!